Navigator- food review

[vacationlover_mn]

Just got off Navigator this week, and thought I should post a food review…

My husband and I (dinks), have cruised a bit over the past 24.5 years.  This was our 14th and 15th sailing.  When we first started out, we did a few Carnival and Norwegian sailings, but now we are loyal to Royal (but might try Celebrity).  We did the 7 day with UDP, and the 4 day without it.  We were in a 1BRGS.

 

We really enjoyed all of the specialty restaurants.  Hooked and Jaime’s were our favorite, and we did them each 3 times.  The only negative was that when we went to Johnny rockets on a sea day, they were very understaffed, and it was taking 20 minutes for people to get their food.  All of the food was good to amazing 🙂

 

The suite breakfast at Chops was good every day except the last one.  The menu is small but we liked the options.  On the departure day, our order was wrong, and the food was cold.

 

Breakfast and lunch in the MDR was also good, however, almost every time, part of our order was wrong.  But, not so wrong that we didn’t enjoy it 🙂

 

Dinner in the MDR was ok… service was quick and friendly, but we sometimes struggled to find something we wanted on the menu.  Food was always hot.  Going forward, we’ll probably stick to the UDP.

We found breakfast and lunch in the windjammer to be awful… it felt like the selection was smaller than in the past, food quality was poor to mediocre, and often cold to barely warm.  We will try to avoid it completely in the future.

 

I would often order a small “pre-breakfast” from room service, since it was free with a suite, and I usually wake up 2-3 hours before my husband.  While it always tasted great, it was always wrong (either additional things I didn’t order, things missing, or both).  It didn’t bother me, but it would have bothered me if we had paid the $7.95 delivery fee in addition to tips.

 

I will say- every single staff member we encountered was awesome 🙂

 

Feel free to ask me any questions 🙂

[teddybear231]

Do you happen to have any pictures of the meals or MDR menus?

[vacationlover_mn]

Sorry, I have no MDR menu pics… but I do have a bunch of food pics from the specialty restaurants 🙂

[bonsai3s]

1 hour ago, vacationlover_mn said:

Just got off Navigator this week, and thought I should post a food review…

My husband and I (dinks), have cruised a bit over the past 24.5 years.  This was our 14th and 15th sailing.  When we first started out, we did a few Carnival and Norwegian sailings, but now we are loyal to Royal (but might try Celebrity).  We did the 7 day with UDP, and the 4 day without it.  We were in a 1BRGS.

 

We really enjoyed all of the specialty restaurants.  Hooked and Jaime’s were our favorite, and we did them each 3 times.  The only negative was that when we went to Johnny rockets on a sea day, they were very understaffed, and it was taking 20 minutes for people to get their food.  All of the food was good to amazing 🙂

 

The suite breakfast at Chops was good every day except the last one.  The menu is small but we liked the options.  On the departure day, our order was wrong, and the food was cold.

 

Breakfast and lunch in the MDR was also good, however, almost every time, part of our order was wrong.  But, not so wrong that we didn’t enjoy it 🙂

 

Dinner in the MDR was ok… service was quick and friendly, but we sometimes struggled to find something we wanted on the menu.  Food was always hot.  Going forward, we’ll probably stick to the UDP.

We found breakfast and lunch in the windjammer to be awful… it felt like the selection was smaller than in the past, food quality was poor to mediocre, and often cold to barely warm.  We will try to avoid it completely in the future.

 

I would often order a small “pre-breakfast” from room service, since it was free with a suite, and I usually wake up 2-3 hours before my husband.  While it always tasted great, it was always wrong (either additional things I didn’t order, things missing, or both).  It didn’t bother me, but it would have bothered me if we had paid the $7.95 delivery fee in addition to tips.

 

I will say- every single staff member we encountered was awesome 🙂

 

Feel free to ask me any questions 🙂

Just hoping you completed the survey and included your review of the Windjammer. Thanks.

 

* We love Royal....but the changes and "cuts" they've made in the Windjammer was so bad...we were shocked.  Just one example: No meat carvings for lunch. 

 

* Sadly, the experienced cruisers will notice the changes, the new cruisers won't know the difference. (Repeated mantra)

[Morecruisesplz]

2 hours ago, vacationlover_mn said:

Just got off Navigator this week, and thought I should post a food review…

My husband and I (dinks), have cruised a bit over the past 24.5 years.  This was our 14th and 15th sailing.  When we first started out, we did a few Carnival and Norwegian sailings, but now we are loyal to Royal (but might try Celebrity).  We did the 7 day with UDP, and the 4 day without it.  We were in a 1BRGS.

 

We really enjoyed all of the specialty restaurants.  Hooked and Jaime’s were our favorite, and we did them each 3 times.  The only negative was that when we went to Johnny rockets on a sea day, they were very understaffed, and it was taking 20 minutes for people to get their food.  All of the food was good to amazing 🙂

 

The suite breakfast at Chops was good every day except the last one.  The menu is small but we liked the options.  On the departure day, our order was wrong, and the food was cold.

 

Breakfast and lunch in the MDR was also good, however, almost every time, part of our order was wrong.  But, not so wrong that we didn’t enjoy it 🙂

 

Dinner in the MDR was ok… service was quick and friendly, but we sometimes struggled to find something we wanted on the menu.  Food was always hot.  Going forward, we’ll probably stick to the UDP.

We found breakfast and lunch in the windjammer to be awful… it felt like the selection was smaller than in the past, food quality was poor to mediocre, and often cold to barely warm.  We will try to avoid it completely in the future.

 

I would often order a small “pre-breakfast” from room service, since it was free with a suite, and I usually wake up 2-3 hours before my husband.  While it always tasted great, it was always wrong (either additional things I didn’t order, things missing, or both).  It didn’t bother me, but it would have bothered me if we had paid the $7.95 delivery fee in addition to tips.

 

I will say- every single staff member we encountered was awesome 🙂

 

Feel free to ask me any questions 🙂

UDP is exactly what they want everyone to do.

[Seamus6]

I just got on navigator the day you got off and my experience was quite different. 

In the MDR, my DH and I never got a hot entree the whole week.  The only hot food I got all week was soup!  None of it had any great flavor either, often lacking even the basic seasoning like salt and pepper.  The windjammer was the same.  Nothing was hot except soup and the burgers.  even when I got the first serving out of new tray of food!  how does that happen?  There is no way they could pass an FDA/FSIS inspection where food must be maintained at 135 degrees.  I don't think they were hitting 100!  The burgers in the windjammer were sitting on a hot grill plate and sizzling so they were hot but when I tried one it was rubbery so I'm guessing it had been sitting there a half hour after it was cooked.

 

Jamie's Italian served a hot slab of lasagna but it had some odd spice like nutmeg that I really found distasteful.  The filet mignon at chops was pretty good and at the proper temperature for being rested properly.  The sauces were adequately flavored but not great.  the sides which were supposed to be shareable were quite small but since you can order multiples, the three of us got enough to eat.  they were mediocre to good.  Neither specialty restaurant was worth the money.  Giovanni's on other ships was outstanding at late as a year ago..

This is the third RCCL ship I have been on since COVID and the food has been consistently cold and bad.  I would give most of the food I had on the 3 cruises anywhere from a 3 to a 5 where I was rating most food on RCCL between 7 and 9 before COVID.  It's very sad.  Service seemed okay at t he table but I am assuming part of the problem with cold food was the servers and perhaps they were covering too many tables which is a management problem.

 

I have one more RCCL cruise lined up which I did not choose; it is a family cruise with in-laws which will put us into Diamond status and yet that will likely be my last RCCL cruise for the foreseeable future.  I will take my diamond status to Celebrity where I can enjoy elite benefits and see if they are doing any better.  Ultimately, I am sure I'll be heading to lines like Viking Ocean, Regent or Seabourn to try to get back to the level (or hopefully better) that the main cruise lines had before COVID.

I have no problem paying for better food and thought that's what I was doing with the specialty restaurants.

 

 

[joeyancho]

Try Princess.  They try harder.